


Overcharged

by kesomon



Series: Ram, Expanded [5]
Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies)
Genre: Circuit Stroking, Dom/Sub Fantasy, Energy Build-up, Lightcycles, M/M, Masturbation, Porn With Plot, Program Pon Farr, Voice Kink, circuit porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:49:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesomon/pseuds/kesomon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about energy was that all programs processed it differently. Ram's just having a bit more trouble than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overcharged

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-movie missing scene. Yup. Program Pon Farr. I went there. Not entirely satisfied with the dialogue once the explicit stuff starts up; would appreciate suggestions for making the next time I porn better.
> 
> Thanks be to everyone who helped out with this! I know this probably made the rounds through everyone's fingers during writing.

The thing about energy was that all programs processed it differently.

Programs like Tron, whose very code sang with the rush of battle and competition and defeat-the-adversary-at-all-costs, excelled in the Games. Not a single drop of energy was wasted where Tron was concerned; each function received the perfect amount and it all blended harmoniously to make him a deadly and tireless opponent. Ram had decided long ago that If Sark were to ever pit him against Tron in a match, he would offer up his own disk and accept his deresolution, even if he had to slit his own throat to do so. It would be less painful than fighting back for those few minutes extra of life, only to have Sark force the program he’d started to call a friend to cut him down.

Programs like Ram, however, weren’t as lucky. Sure, most of the energy he consumed went to the tasks that he used on a constant basis now, keeping him alert and functioning in the Games. But there was always a small portion that was siphoned off, held in reserve for the subroutines that he hadn’t had much use for lately. The ones User-R_Kleinberg7 kept when he was building Ram up from the base code of an actuary. Some of those functions were still useful for calculating trajectories and strategies, but there were others that remained inactive and untouched, yet were still supplied power. It was inefficient and wasteful, and one of the few things Ram harboured resentment for where his User was concerned.

Everyone in the cells got the same meagre rations, regardless. At the start of every uptime, a cup of energy, pure glow watered down and dimmed, was rezzed into his cell. Ram picked it up and studied the contents for a long time. In the neighbouring cell, Tron tipped his back in one go, a grimace following as the bitter burn of the diluted liquid passed over his tongue. Ram couldn’t but agree. It was disgusting, this mixture, and made his system want to do a full purge, but energy was energy here and he couldn’t be picky. Ram always forced it down, dreaming of pure, clear pools and the bright, sweet, electric tang of free power.

Tron crumpled his cup in his hand, watching it derezz into pixels between his fingers, and looked through the partition. “Everything alright Ram?”

“Yeah.” Ram shook himself from his thoughts and tipped the energy back, blue circuits brightening just a little with the intake of power, and ignored the way his holding tanks churned.

**Ooo---oOo---ooO**

It started off slow.

With the MCP appropriating more and more programs, and sending more and more User-Believers to the pit cells to await their deresolution by combat, Ram found that his own appearances on the Gaming Grid were growing less frequent.

For once, he had time to kill.

At first this made him ecstatic. He was able to put himself in a suitable hibernation mode for the first time in… Users, he couldn’t remember the last time he slept properly. He’d stopped watching his internal chronometer hexes ago when knowing just how long he’d been captive had started to depress him.

He also felt better than he had in cycles. Polluted and weak their rations might’ve been, but absorbing it daily without being forced to burn it needlessly on the Game Grid made him far more alert and lucid. He was more cheerful as a result, less likely to slide into pessimistic moods, and stopped asking Tron if he still believed the Users were out there every time they had a moment to themselves. Instead, he was the one cheerfully describing scenarios in which their Users charged to their rescue, giving the MCP a nice kick in his fat, floating, bit-face.

This seemed to cheer Tron up in return, so it was possible Ram had been slightly annoying in the past with how frequently he’d sought Tron’s stories.

Whatever was making Sark ignore Ram hadn’t affected the attention given to his cellmate. Tron still saw more of the Games than him, so he was gone more often than not, often only getting a few nano-hexes, a microcycle or two if he was lucky, to rest before being marched out again, leaving Ram alone. Ram soon realized his newfound…freedom, for lack of a better description, had a downside.

They warned him about derezzing in the Games. No one ever said there was a risk of derezzing in the pit cells from _utter boredom_.

The alert and lucid feeling turned into restlessness. Ram started pacing to burn off the excess energy; when that wasn’t enough, he started practicing with his disk. He couldn’t exactly throw it in the small confines of his cell, so he calculated how many tricks he could work with his hands in a tight space. It turned out he was pretty dexterous, to the point where even Tron was impressed. Utilizing this new function raised his rank on the Gaming Grid another two levels and they started using him more.

But he was still restless.

**Ooo---oOo---ooO**

The build-up was getting worse.

The Games weren’t enough anymore. No matter how much he burned off, he couldn’t tap into that reserve of energy being stored for all those inactive routines. He was back to irregular hibernation cycles, only this time it was the opposite problem; instead of guards and Games keeping him awake, it was his own body waking him up far too early, forcing him to lay awake longer during downtime, unable to shut down his processors.

It was also making him hypersensitive. The armour they were outfitted in dulled the impact of disk cuts and being thrown about, but underneath it chafed and rubbed at his more numerous skin circuits. He stopped moving around as much, lest he start making noises in front of his cellmates that would make things sufficiently awkward as to make them never want to talk to him again. This of course was highly counter-productive, and now he couldn’t burn _anything_ off while idling.

He switched his chronometer back on just to have something running, and it turned out he’d been in the pit cells nearly 200 microcycles.

He thought it couldn’t get worse, but it did.

**Ooo---oOo---ooO**

He was on the disk grid and had to slam himself to the ground to avoid a close shave with the edge of a Red’s identity disk. The impact with the floor sent an unexpectedly strong jolt through his sensors, whiting out his vision for crucial picocycles, and he barely came back to himself in time to deflect another pass.

He swore, voraciously. ~ _Deletion and circuit-glitch!~_

The enemy disk came close enough to sear a shallow line through his bracer, and the pain as the incompatible code came in contact with his circuits was almost crippling. In a desperate move, he twisted like Tron showed him and brought the white-hot edge of his disk up, cutting his opponent from stern to stem. The Red fell apart in a shower of pixels, perpetual surprise fixed on his face as it crumbled, but Ram couldn’t focus on how ruthless or just how fast he’d just performed. He was too busy rerouting energy and trying to dial down the input from the malfunctioning tactile sensors.

He was shaking when the guards entered the grid to remove him, flinching from their touches to his hypersensitive circuits. At least by the time he reached his cell, operations were back to normal parameters.

Okay. He might be in a little trouble.

**Ooo---oOo---ooO**

Three microcycles later and Ram was on the lightcycle grid, cursing his User out like a Solar Sailer dock worker for ever writing in those _glitching_ subroutines. The same armour circuits that were malfunctioning on the disk grid were malfunctioning again, but he didn’t have the luxury of a quick enemy derezz and a breather to diagnose and repair the problem.

Thank the Users for Tron, who Ram had run enough races with to know his manoeuvres and strategies well enough that he could stay out of the way of the security program as Tron systematically hunted down and derezzed their opponents. Their third member, a novice that had no business being on an elite team, took a messy dive picocycles into the game and Ram…Ram was too distracted by his own bit-glitch lightcycle to be of any use.

His knuckles were leeched of any colour as he gripped the handlebars.  The lightcycle’s engine matrix thrummed between his legs, sending a buzzing vibration through his armour and into his shell circuits that was downright obscene. A particularly strong pulse wrenched a tremulous moan from his throat and he almost closed his eyes.

“RAM, HARD LEFT!” Tron’s voice snapped over the intercom, and Ram jerked his bike hard left with a jolt of sheer terror, missing the wall of an enemy lightcycle by a hairsbreadth. He couldn’t close his eyes, or he’d crash, but the _vibrations_ \- oh _Users_ , derezz him, _please_ , and spare him the humiliation of dying from circuit-stimulation in front of Tron. He would never, EVER live it down.

He brought his lightcycle to a sharp halt as the last opponent disappeared in a flare of blue pixels, deactivating the baton and dropping to his knees. He heard footsteps approach at a quickened pace, and Tron’s worried “Ram, are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“No,” he choked out, glad the purple tinge of his lower circuits had faded enough that it wasn’t immediately noticeable. “Sorry, just – I’m alright.” He sucked in a deep breath and climbed to his feet, staggering. Tron reached out a hand and grabbed his arm to steady him. A shiver of pleasure rushed along the circuits there, turning them violet, and he couldn’t help but whimper, closing his eyes. Tron released him immediately, and when Ram reluctantly opened his eyes the security program was giving him a calculating and concerned stare.

“I’m fine,” he said again, smiling reassuringly, not that Tron looked convinced. And then the guards were there and they were being escorted back to their cells, but Ram could feel Tron’s stare boring into the back of his helmet the entire way.

He was in definite trouble.

**Ooo---oOo---ooO**

Ram came out of standby midway through the next downtime feeling like he’d been dunked in a pool of pure energy and then left out for the gridbugs. Every circuit was running hot, his cooling systems doing nothing for it. He tried to move, and immediately clamped a hand over his mouth to smother the sound that erupted, the circuits under his skin flushing pink.

This was now past trouble and into Highly Vexing, and Ram was fed up with it.

The actuary rolled to his knees, biting his lip, and peered past the partitions that separated him from his adjoining cells. Since Crom had been transferred, the one on the left had been empty for a fair number of microcycles; on the right, Tron’s circuits were dimmed, only the four squares on his torso providing any real illumination, and their glow pulsed and faded slowly in a sign he was hibernating. Good.

Ram pushed himself back against the wall and tried to find a comfortable position, staring at the now constant pink glow suffused on his armour circuitry. It was a fair bet he wouldn’t be any use tomorrow if he didn’t do something. He was just kicking himself that it took this long and a lightcycle match to realize the perfect solution to his energy expenditure problems.

The first brush of his fingers across the curve of his armour’s chest circuits was a burst of light across his eyes and he stifled a moan as the bound-up energy in his system pulsed in response. He let his head tip back, helmet thunking against the wall, and stroked along the edge of a main node, exhaling sharply at the flush of pleasure that tingled through his sensors. He was no virgin to self-stimulation, but it had been so long since he’d felt the need to.

He pressed his whole hand to his chest, palm splaying across multiple pathways as his index finger circled a connecting dot, and choked on a low groan of pleasure. Oh _Users_. He’d forgotten how good this could feel. Slowly he slid his touch down, trailing heat and sparks, as he braced his heels against the floor and rocked his hips up into the curve of his digits. Primary sensors activated at the press of his fingers and he couldn’t help but hiss a vicious swear at the delicious rush that followed.

“Ram?”

Ram jerked violently in startled alarm, tearing his hands away from his circuits. His disk was in his hand and activated before he realized Tron was staring at him through the force field barrier. For a moment, his vocal processors locked up, and he could only flap his mouth like a phish, cheeks flushing with a heat that had nothing to do with the energy build-up at all.

“Uh. Tron. Hi.” _Bits-glitches and gridbugs._ “How long were you, uh, watching that?”

Tron’s expression was inscrutable, but his response was wry. “Since ‘Glitch, oh, my User,’” he quoted in a deadpan tone, relaxing with one leg folded beneath him and the other bent at the knee to lay his arm across. “You were a bit loud.”

_Derezz me. Derezz me right here and now, User-R_Kleinberg7, if there is any salvation in the world._

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Ram’s language engines glitched at that. “Buhwa?”

Tron smirked through the barrier; his pupils were dark, his irises bright. “It’s obvious you need it. You’ve been having symptoms of energy build-up for millicycles.” His eyes traced the path of Ram’s still-purpled armour, and there was a play of indigo shifting the security program’s circuit colour that wasn’t just reflection from Ram’s own lights. “I didn’t want to say anything, but on the lightcycle grid earlier…” he trailed off. Ram shivered at the remembered terror of almost derezzing…and the remembered flush of pleasure that followed when Tron touched his arm.

A bit self-consciously, he deactivated and re-docked his disk, then leaned back against the wall. The electrostatic in his circuits was building again, unsatisfied with the small amount he’d bled off, and he closed his eyes as he raised a hand to stroke the circuit pattern at his neck, his identification symbol. The touch drew a breathy moan from his throat that he didn’t bother to restrain this time.

“That’s it,” Tron’s voice, soft and reverent. Ram felt his circuits pulse brighter at the tone, and he grinned, couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the surrealism of coaxing himself to overload with an audience. Feeling more confident, he drew his fingertips across the web of circuits covering his torso, creating a ripple of intense violet across lines of pink, and groaned deliriously.

Bolder, he teased his fingers underneath the edge of the chest plate, brushing both armour and shell circuitry, and gasped as the touch registered as both dull-warm and bright-sharp. He continued stroking there, letting the energy build and burn until his breath was coming quick and shallow and he was keening softly.

It felt _good_ , but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the right cluster; the energy still roiled beneath his skin, humming for an outlet. He removed his hand, whimpering a little at the absence, and ran his fingers down the connecting line that followed the curve of his stomach.

“Users, Ram,” Tron groaned, his voice choked. Ram opened an eye a sliver to see the security program was tracing his own circuits idly; leaving patches of indigo that blossomed out and dissipated back to blue. Ram smirked, and let his bent legs fall open, relaxing completely against the cell wall and giving his inner thigh a caress that was more sultry than self-indulgent, shivering at the touch with a lazy smile.

“Cheeky hacker,” the monitor growled, smirking back. “You wouldn’t be such a tease if this force field wasn’t in place.” He rapped his knuckles briefly against the barrier.

“Ooh. Big bad security program,” Ram mocked playfully, unable to help the grin that drew his lips up. “Whatcha gonna do, quarantine me?”

“Doubt even a security quarantine would put you in your place,” Tron replied, taking up the offered challenge readily. “You’re far too clever for that.” As Ram nodded smugly, the other program leaned against the wall. “No, I can tell; you’d need a more…direct approach.”

The actuary swallowed at the heated look in Tron’s eyes, his mouth suddenly dry. He licked his lips, his response tremulous behind the bravado he tried to project. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Oh,” and Tron was smiling now, and it wasn’t a reassuring expression. The predatory gleam in his eyes made Ram shiver in anticipation. “I’d probably have to bind your hands, for a start. Wouldn’t want you accessing any backdoors, would we?” Ram sucked in a short breath, clenching his fists; the mental image sent an unexpected jolt of excitement through his core. Tron continued, unabated. “After a while you’d get just like this, wouldn’t you? Overcharged and trembling for relief.”

“It’s all locked up in redundant systems, functions I can’t access when I’m in here,” he croaked, suddenly quite aware of the deep violet flush of his circuits. “I’d be going nuts.” He _was_ going nuts. He reached up and rested a hand at his collar, rubbing the circuits there with a slow, heavy pressure.

“Even a quarantined program doesn’t deserve that kind of torment,” his neighbour agreed. “You’d be so willing to cooperate if it meant a fix.”

“Nghh…” He touched his other hand to his chest, fondling a node. “Help me, Tron, please.”

“Undo your armour. Don’t take it off, just unlatch it.”

Oh _Users_. Ram moved his hands to the attach-points, deactivating them one by one. It was dangerous to do this, to remove the armour when he had no idea if he’d have the chance to put it back on before the guards got wise. The chest piece split down the side; he peeled it away, leaving it hanging off his shoulders, and he groaned as the cool air washed over his skin. His circuit lights pulsed in response.

It’d been a long time since he’d bared his skin circuits for another program. From Tron’s expression, it had probably been a long time for him as well.

“Perfect,” Tron praised, leaning in as his eyes raked over Ram’s torso. “I’d start with a light touch; brush the nodes on your sides, watch you flush all over. You blush so beautifully, you know.” Ram moved his hand to run down his side, trembling as circuits flared violet under his fingertips. “At the same time I’d lean in, give those on your throat a taste.” The actuary’s breath hitched at that. Tron smirked. “Bet you’d like that, huh, the feel of my tongue and teeth teasing those lines, maybe hard enough to fracture and bruise them. You’d have to go microcycles with your circuits damaged. Everyone would know what you got up to while in custody, just by looking at those marks.”

“Frag, Tron,” Ram moaned, lights pulsing intensely as he pressed down on the hot lines of his ID mark, rubbing them with rough urgency. His other hand had slipped lower, circling a node on his hip in the same fashion. The idea of Tron providing that pressure, to push him down and suck and bite hairline cracks into his circuits until he was gasping for it…and then to imagine going out with those circuits permanently bruised in pink and red until his diagnostic systems repaired them – his fingers dug in, and the burst of pleasure that splashed white spots behind his eyes was enough to make him gasp and keen with need.

Tron groaned, and he sounded _wrecked_. “Then I’d…I’d move in, kneel between your legs; get you up against the wall.” Ram dug a heel into the floor at this, stroking the intricate designs criss-crossing his lower stomach. Tron just wouldn’t let up, his voice rough. “I’d stroke and rub and grind against you until you felt on the verge of derezzing, just to listen to the sounds you make.”

Ram was making quite a few sounds already; might’ve almost been embarrassed by the tiny whimpers that escaped with every panting breath, but he could barely spark his synapses into forming a coherent line of logic binary, much less care about what he sounded like. His magenta circuits were glowing so strongly they looked almost black at the edges, and he was sure he’d attracted the attention of the guards by now. He slipped a hand under his lower armour, brushing nodes and clusters and gasping at each. He pressed a hand into the circuits between his legs, almost sobbing with relief as he felt the right cluster finally connect and activate, and rocked his hips up into his palm.

“That’s it, that’s good, that’s _nice_ Ram.” Tron’s voice dipped into a low growl, almost like the purr of a hard drive, urging him on. “Harder, faster. C’mon, that’s it. Almost there.” Ram could feel it; he was so close it _burned_. Every system was running hot. A desperate keen escaped his throat as his head tossed back, thudding hard against the wall, and he was glad for the helmet because otherwise that would’ve hurt.

“Nn..ah..ah..Tron…hhh…” The power under his skin coiled; suddenly began building in a cascade effect, and he cried out, digging his fingers into fever-bright lines. And just when it felt like he was about to explode from the build-up there was –

– a flare of heat; his circuits brightened, sensors screaming, error warnings flashing behind his eyelids in bright red and white sparks as –

– his systems locked up, vision whiting out; his back arced, hips desperately rutting up into fingers pushing down, pressing until –

– a rush of energy, flooding free, pulsing through every function and subroutine and he might’ve moaned aloud, the relief too great to process. He shook as he overloaded; trembled, gasping for breath, slumping spent and exhausted against the floor of his cell.

Finally, blessedly _equalized_.

He shut down.

**Ooo---oOo---ooO**

Ram wasn’t sure how long it took him to reboot, but the cells were still dark when he finally opened his eyes; it couldn’t have been too long if they were still on downtime. He lay still, feeling sluggish and sated, sensors still tender but no longer running hot. The floor felt wonderfully cool against his bare skin. His energy reserves were tapped out, circuits barely casting a glow on the walls, and for a moment he considered slipping back into hibernation.

Instead, he sat up, groaning softly as his limbs protested the movement. He reattached his armour with fumbling fingers, and sighed as it recalibrated with his systems, leaning his forehead against the wall.

Memory was the next thing to boot up, and he jerked upright in alarm. Users, he’d almost forgotten Tron. He scrambled across the floor to the barrier window, craning his neck to peer through. “Tron?”

Tron looked up from where he was seated against the wall, an arm resting across his knee. He smiled as he met Ram’s gaze; his circuits were still more of an indigo hue than User-friendly blue, but they were starting to shift back. “Good, you’re awake. I was starting to wonder if you hadn’t permanently crashed.”

Ram’s circuits tinged a light pink as he grinned sheepishly back. “Kinda felt like I had.” The smile faded to a concerned tilt of his head. “I didn’t make you run hot too, did I? Glitch, I hate to leave a program hanging.”

Tron’s chuckle was a warm rasp. “No, Ram. I’ll be fine. I didn’t have enough energy to force an overload. Though, watching you, I wish I had.” His gaze was heated.

Despite the low energy levels, Ram felt his circuits shift with a weak pulse of power that left a light violet tinge briefly suffused across his lines. He swallowed and grinned.

“Well then, someday, when we get out of here and get back to running on proper energy levels, I’m gonna return the favour.”

Tron’s smile was bright and amused. “I look forward to it.”


End file.
